A few months out of warranty & the radiator (EK Coolsteam WE 540mm) in my first water cooled build has given up
The temps had been creeping up a little & I had to top up the coolant for the first time (outside of water changes) a few weeks ago, I checked over the system at that time & couldn’t spot any leaks, so just put it down to warm weather & maybe the hoses starting to fail.
I swapped the GPUs over to my Ryzen system last week, as it has double the radiators & wasn’t really using the capacity. So I just had the CPU left in the loop.
Turned the desk on tonight & it ran for about 5 minutes before the pump started screaming at me. I turned it off & found the radiator leaking heavily from the fins in a corner. I’ll have a closer look once it drys out & try & see exactly what the problem was. I think I’ll just go back to air on this now. It’s only used for general internet stuff, so doesn’t really need the water now that all my gaming is done on the Ryzen build.
This sucks. I am curious as to how long this radiator was in service. I think this failure is kind of rare, i’ve not heard many complaints about an issue like this.
Glad your harware is omay, this could have been a much bigger disaster.
Kind of hard to take a picture of it, but there is green corrosion on the outside. The coolant was blue, so that makes it harder to see. No visible damage- It was located behind a metal screen, so it was near impossible for there to be mechanical damage.
The Radiator has been in use since March 2016, so pretty much right on 2 years, which is the Warranty period. All other cooling parts are EK, including the coolant. 1st coolant change around August 2016 & another about the same time last year when I moved house.
It could have been a lot worse, this system until I switched the GPUs over was mining during the day when I was at work. I could have come home to a dead pump & wet floor.
